Tailchaser’s Song

Fritti jumped up and scrambled toward the way out, but Firefoot called him back with a laugh.

"It can wait but a moment more, I promise you. I did see something else, another desire that courses strongly in you. You seek someone, although you have lost your search. This search helped lead you to me, so it seems only right that I should aid you."

Fritti felt as if he were falling into the sky-deep eyes… a moment later he was staring wildly from wall to wall: the tiny underground chamber was empty. Then a voice came to him, treading his mind as effortlessly as Hearteater had, but nimbly… and with respect.

"I have given you the knowledge to finish your quest. Would that I could give you more, but I shall have sore need of my resources very shortly. You will be in our thoughts, little brother."

The presence was gone, and Fritti was completely alone.

Wondering, he remembered the Clawguard who had been massing outside. When he cautiously lifted his head through the fissure, he discovered the tu

Unable to remember how he had covered the distance or what paths he had followed, Tailchaser found himself mounting the curving path that circumscribed the cavern of the Scalding Flume. The great, boiling river roared as vigorously as ever, and seemed to be striking even higher on the stone walls that pe

The river did in fact seem to be leaping to greater heights: the tendrils of water splashed up against the cavern's massive ceiling, then fell back as hissing rain. Despite the poor visibility, Tailchaser moved quickly and surely along the pitted, eroded trail. He had been touched by something far beyond himself, and still felt the buoyant aftereffects.

The breeze changed direction, coming about into his whiskers, and in that instant he heard Pounce-quick's shrill squeal of fright and pain.

"Pouncequick. Roofshadow, I'm coming!" Fritti howled. Suddenly he was leaping along the narrow path, trusting to instincts that he knew he did not possess in his frenzied hurry to reach his friends. As he skidded around a bend in the narrow trail, scrabbling for footing above the booming, steaming waters, he saw his two companions ahead. Roofshadow was standing over a bleeding Pouncequick, struggling fiercely with a great dark creature twice her size-Scratchnail.

The black beast, striped and spotted with blood, turned his mad eyes toward Tailchaser's approach. A snarling grin curled his wide face.

"Star-face. Star-face the Tailchaser! I'll kill him someday! I will!" Scratchnail gave out a loud bark of laughter, and Roofshadow fell back, wounded and panting. Tailchaser bounded grimly forward as Scratchnail fell into a crouch, thick tail thrashing the air behind him. A rumble from the ceiling stones seemed to pass through the cavern.

Fritti pulled up short in the wide part of the path, dropping to a bow-backed hunch several jumps away from the Clawguard. The ominous rumble mounted once more above the clamor of the Flume.

"Come for me if you want me, Scratchnail," Tailchaser said, putting as much scorn into his voice as he could muster. The Claw-beast gri

"Roofshadow!" Tailchaser cried, above the increasing tumult from above and below. "Take Pouncequick and keep moving!"

"He's badly hurt, Tailchaser," the fela called back. The Clawguard was moving sinuously down the path toward Fritti, death in each scarlet claw.

"All the more reason to get him to the surface!" Fritti called. "This is my fight. You've done what you can. Go on!"

Fritti saw Roofshadow and Pouncequick turn and move up the trail, the kitten stumbling badly. He turned his attention back to the creature before him.

They faced each other-the small orange cat with the white star; the dark, blood-nailed beast from the earth. Hips and tails wriggling, they stared for a long moment. The Clawguard sprang, and there was another great noise from above. In the instant before contact, Fritti saw showers of small stones come pattering down-then Scratchnail was on him.

Biting and kicking, they rolled over on the narrow causeway, the dark beast's low snarls matched in intensity by Tailchaser's own maddened yowling. They gouged and snapped, then broke apart, walking a constrained circle on their tiny ledge, death-instincts drawing them slowly nearer each other until, leaping, they closed again.

The ritual was repeated over and over. The superior size of Scratchnail was wearing away Fritti's failing strength, but the smaller cat would not let up. They struggled and bit, fell apart, then fell together once more. Both cats moved with the anguished slowness of dark, blind creatures on the bottom of the Bigwater, blind things thrashing in the mud.

Finally, Fritti was overborne, pushed down on the edge of the pathway. His head hung limply, a dizzying drop above the rolling waters. The cavern now reverberated to a ceaseless pounding from the very stones of the roof, as if giant shapes danced above their heads.

Fritti lay motionless. An arching jet of burning-hot liquid shot up past his face. Scratchnail buried his teeth in Tailchaser's nape, gripping tight on the spine. Fritti could feel the mighty jaws closing… closing… and the pressure stopped.

Scratchnail had released his hold. He was staring down at Fritti, squat paws on the smaller cat's chest. Something in Scratchnail's eyes changed, and they lost focus.

"Star-face?" he said questioningly. His look of mad hatred seemed to change, to shift into something like fear. "It really is you, star-face?" He seemed to be recognizing Fritti for the first time, as if he had been fighting spirits, shadows that suddenly had become real. Scratchnail's expression began a slow twisting back into hatred.

"You have destroyed me, you little sun-rat," he snarled. The Clawguard swiveled his head from side to side in confusion, looking up into the farthest reaches of the cavern.

"What has happened?" he screamed. "What has happened to my…"

A hideous, grinding roar, and then a great wave of gray rock passed before Fritti's eyes, obliterating Scratchnail from his sight. Then this too was gone; suddenly, Tailchaser was alone on the ledge. Painfully turning his head, he saw the last of the sliding rocks careen down the sloping stone wall below him and, with a great splash, disappear into the swollen river. Of Scratchnail there was not a trace.

Fritti pulled himself upright and clambered laboriously over the broken remains of the avalanche, then went limping up the winding path. The cavern was shaking in earnest now; the water below leaped and danced in mighty spouts that climbed toward the cavern's roof. The heat was oppressive: Tailchaser had to exercise all his resolve not to lie down where he was and not move again.

He reached a tu

How fu

The last noise he heard w as a rending crash from the cavern below. It sounded as if every tree in Ratleaf had fallen at the same time. Then the tu